THE HAUNTED MALIBU

Author D.S. Dollman (<-- the picture is not her!) of the online group JustGhostStories found a recent haunted house article in the Great Falls Tribune apparently related to a 1975 disappearance of a woman who lived there.

http://http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070906/NEWS01/70906003/1002AID=/20070906/NEWS01/70906003/1002

What is really interesting is the comments. Readers were upset that the Tribune was so callous in sharing this “un-news-worthy” item so soon after the disappearance. (32 years ago!) This brought to mind how our society goes so overboard to make sure there won’t be any lingering memories.

We completely remodeled Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. They bulldozed the Luby’s in Killeen, Texas because of the shootings there. I remember a McDonalds that met a similar fate, but I don’t remember where it was. And more recently, an Amish community built a whole new school rather than fix the bullet holes in the old one.

I remember they didn’t tear down the clock tower at the University of Texas after the shootings there. In fact, I’m a bit fuzzy about when we started razing every building where a mass murder occurs, but I know a place where a most grizzly crime took place that still exists, and I’ve been in it many times!

First, let me warn you. The murders were BAD. Do not read the rest of this post if you are eating.

There is a building on the Southwest Freeway at Westpark in Houston we all know as the Haunted Malibu. It was a Malibu Gran Prix family fun center, with a go-cart track and an arcade. One night in the early ‘80s, just after closing, three disgruntled employees entered the building and murdered everybody. All five victims were mutilated. One 19-year-old, who tried to hide in the bathroom, had a 12-inch knife twisted into his brain like a corkscrew. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you!) The “gentleman” pictured above was found guilty of this murder.

If you look this up on Wikipedia, it says the place was shuttered because of the murders, but not so. After a short while, the center reopened. My Scouts went there many times after washing cars on Saturdays, between 1986 and 1993. When we had someone with us that didn’t know about the murders, we would watch them use the restroom. Often they came out and said something like: “What’s up with that bathroom! I can’t go with somebody watching me!” I swear, from personal experience, that no one is ever alone in that bathroom, and the sensation is most uncomfortable.

The building was a car dealership for awhile, but now it stands abandoned and forlorn, a canvas for gangs to post graffiti on.

What do we accomplish when we destroy a place where ghosts remain? Does it hurt the ghosts? Obviously tearing down the scene of the crime doesn’t satisfy a spirit’s unfinished business, so what becomes of them?